Top 20 Mobile Operators

A carriers’ minority holdings (meaning, any assets that they own less than 50 percent of) are excluded from this list. So, for example, Vodafone and Verizon Wireless are listed separately, since Vodafone does not have a majority ownership of Verizon Wireless.

According to Wireless Intelligence, carriers in Asia and Latin America have been moving up in the rankings of this list during the past year. China, India and Indonesia have been growing at a rapid pace. The consolidation of the Wind Telecom businesses into VimpelCom led to a 115 percent year-on-year increase in VimpelCom’s connections base in Q2, propelling it eight places to #6 on 191.9 million total connections.

US market-leader Verizon Wireless (#13) fell two positions from last year, while rival AT&T (#16) was unchanged. Like the mature European operators, however, mobile revenues were significantly higher than at their emerging market counterparts.